


The Case of the Secret Fan

by wendymr



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Sherlock sometimes gets it wrong, casefic, fandom stocking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-28 23:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendymr/pseuds/wendymr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Someone's trying to get Sherlock's attention again. To John's alarm, they've succeeded.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Case of the Secret Fan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dark_Aegis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Aegis/gifts).



> Someone's trying to get Sherlock's attention again. To John's alarm, they've succeeded.

 

 _Think you’re so clever? Even the great Sherlock Holmes is wrong sometimes. That body this morning? Murdered._

 _\- Concerned Citizen_

“John. Come and look at this.”

John looks, then frowns. “That wasn’t murder!”

“Yes, I am aware.” Sherlock starts to type, punching the keys of John’s laptop hard enough that John wants to snatch it away from him.

 _I observed the evidence, which clearly indicated suicide. Unfortunately for your concern, a mere anonymous assertion on a website does not constitute evidence._

 _\- SH_

“You might have said that a _qualified doctor_ also says it was suicide,” John points out, but without much expectation that Sherlock is listening.

In fact, he’s not. He’s compulsively refreshing the page. And there it is: a response.

 _“Didn’t look very closely, did you? Did you even see the tattoo?_

 _\- Concerned Citizen_

John sighs. “What tattoo? Sherlock, whoever it is, they’re just trying to get your attention.”

“Well, he or she has got it.” Sherlock’s gaze doesn’t move from the laptop. John drops into the chair next to him and tries to reason with him.

“Sherlock. You know what happened last time someone did that. Let it go.”

“No.” Sherlock types again.  

 _The tattoo is irrelevant._

 _\- SH_

More compulsive refreshing, then another post:

 _Then why do three supposedly unrelated bodies in the last ten days all have the exact same tattoo? With no other connection between them?_

 _\- Concerned Citizen_

“Three?” Okay, now the so-called Concerned Citizen’s got John’s attention as well, despite his misgivings based on their experience with Moriarty. “Did you know about this, Sherlock?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer; he’s already typing again.

 _No other_ obvious _connection. But, if this is true, why are you telling me and not the police?_

 _\- SH_

 _No, wait. You tried and the police wouldn’t listen to you._

 _\- SH_

He refreshes again, then sets the comments to a ten-second auto-refresh and switches to another screen, running some kind of searches at lightning speed.

Twenty minutes later, there still hasn’t been another post, and Sherlock leaps to his feet. “Come on, John, we’re going out!”

“Where?” John asks as he searches around for his coat and part of him wonders if he should bring his Browning.

“Internet cafe!” Sherlock shouts from halfway down the stairs. By the time John’s caught up with him, he’s out on the street, holding a cab door open.

“Why d’you want to go to an internet cafe? We’ve got internet!”

“Oh, John.” Sherlock shakes his head. “Didn’t you notice what I was doing? IP trace. The posts all came from the same IP address, which resolves to an internet cafe on Victoria Bridge Road, Hannah Trading. Google Street View shows that it’s a small mobile phone shop below a dental and health clinic; most likely has no more than five or six computers for public use. Of course, our mysterious correspondent is long gone, and it’s more than likely they won’t have any details for the user. Probably won’t even have a description, at least not a decent one – nobody ever does – but we have to do due diligence even if it is a waste of time.”

“Quite finished?” John asks, smothering a grin. How Sherlock manages to breathe when he speaks at breakneck speed like that is beyond him.

Sherlock gives him a puzzled look. “For now.”

He’s right about the internet cafe, of course. Six computers, only two in use, and the manager’s a bored student playing some sort of combat game on his own laptop. He barely glances up when they come in – although his attitude changes as soon as Sherlock flashes Lestrade’s warrant card.

“You can get arrested for that, you know,” John mutters to Sherlock once the manager turns to find the sign-in sheet. “Impersonating a police officer.”

“Lestrade’d never arrest me.” Sherlock sniffs. “And if he did, Mycroft would deal with it.”

“There you go, Inspector,” the manager says, shoving a dog-eared piece of lined paper under Sherlock’s nose. “That was her.” He jabs at a name. “Didn’t really see her, though. She still had her coat hood up – cold out, y’know.”  

“Jane Smith. How original.” Sherlock pushes the paper away. “And let me guess: paid cash?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Five quid for twenty minutes.”  

“Daylight robbery.” Sherlock spins on his heel and faces John. “That’s what someone should be arrested for. Twenty minutes on the internet for five quid? Outrageous. Come on.”

“But don’t you want to look at the computer she used?” John asks, following on Sherlock’s heels – as he does only too often, he admits.

“Useless. She’ll have been wearing gloves, or she’ll have wiped the prints off. No matter. We know who it was.”

“Um, we do?”

“Elementary.” Sherlock stops on the street, looking west for a moment, and then east again. “It’s all here, John. All you have to do is look.”

“No, you’ve lost me.” There are times when he really, really wants to thump Sherlock, or strangle him until he answers a straight question. He could do it, too. Trained soldier, a fact Sherlock appears to forget until it’s convenient to him.

“Not important for now, anyway. We have murders to solve!”

 

***

Another taxi ride then, this time to Scotland Yard. Sherlock’s uncommunicative on the way, spending the time looking up something on his phone. “Checking your website again?” John asks while they sit in traffic.

“What? No. There’s no point. She won’t be back. She’s got what she wanted.”

“All right. So tell me about the tattoos. What’s so important about them?”

Sherlock sucks in air between his teeth. “I don’t know yet. Except that I missed something, and I never miss things.”

“So, what, you’re upset that this Concerned Citizen, whoever she is, noticed something that you didn’t?”

A huff. “First, John, I am not _upset_. I take it that wasn’t intended to be a medical diagnosis?”

“No! I was just-”

“Second, our Concerned Citizen has clearly had access to information to which I was not privy. She said three murders in the last ten days. Lestrade has called me to only two in that period, and in the first of those the body had already been moved by the time I got there. I was not permitted access to the morgue.”

No, because he’d upset Molly once too often in the week prior to the body being taken there. Not that there’s any point in telling Sherlock that; he’ll never understand.

In Scotland Yard, Sherlock sweeps up the stairs and along the hallway leading to Lestrade’s office, completely ignoring the shouts from officers and civilian staff telling them that they can’t be in this part of the building. John can’t help stifling a smile; surely the staff here have to be used to Sherlock by now?

Lestrade’s suddenly in the hallway. “What’s all the commotion?” Then his gaze falls on the two of them, and he holds up a hand. “All right,” he says, his voice commanding. “These two are with me. I’ll take responsibility, sergeant,” he says to the desk sergeant.

“What’s all this about?” he asks, sounding none too pleased, inside his office.

“Murders.” Sherlock starts to pace. “I need access to the complete files on every dead body in the last ten days, including full body photographs. And I may need to view the corpses. I’m assuming that’s no trouble.”

“And what if I said it is? Sherlock, you can’t just come barging in here and demanding to see confidential police reports!” Lestrade places himself in Sherlock’s personal space, staring him down.

“Lestrade, I have reason to believe that this morning’s corpse was murdered.”

“What?” Lestrade runs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Sherlock, that’s been declared suicide. You were there. You agreed with the conclusion – and so did John, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“There was nothing to indicate otherwise at the scene, no,” Sherlock says. “But information has since come to light-”

“Actually, it is possible that death might not have been self-inflicted,” John says, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. This has been on his mind since Sherlock showed him the comment on his website, and he has to say something now. “It’s not the most obvious explanation, which is why I didn’t mention it-”

“John!” Sherlock glares at him. “Always give me _all_ the facts.”

“Oi, Sherlock, you said it was suicide too,” Lestrade points out. “John, what do you mean, it might not have been?”

“You must have wondered,” Sherlock interrupts before John can answer. “Why else would you call me in? Straightforward suicide – as it appeared to be – you wouldn’t have bothered. Yet you did send for me. You weren’t convinced.”

Lestrade huffs out a breath. “No, I wasn’t. It just looked... too convenient.” He starts to pace. “Anderson was sure it was suicide. He was furious that I called you. You know, it was weird: for once, Donovan didn’t seem to mind that I was bringing you in, and that made him even more angry.”

“The files, Lestrade, the files,” Sherlock says, clearly dismissive of Anderson and Donovan’s latest tiff.

Ten minutes later, they’re in an empty interview room with eight stacks of files on the table. “So, John, if not self-inflicted, then how?” Sherlock asks. John hears the words not spoken: _how did I miss it?_

“You saw the angle of the incision on the neck,” John begins.

“Yes, yes, typical type of suicide attempt made by someone ignorant of anatomy. He didn’t realise that it’s actually much easier to sever the trachea if you lean your head forward. Clean, quick and effective, instead of-”

“Yeah, Sherlock, we all saw it,” Lestrade cuts in. “Strikes me as a bit of an odd way to do it, though. I mean, why not slit his wrists? Much easier.” He turns to John. “Not self-inflicted how?”

“I saw it a couple of times in Afghanistan – murders made up to look like suicide, carried out by assassins who’d had enough training not to make it obvious that someone else had slit the victim’s throat, as well as making it look like – well, like we saw this morning. An amateur who knew nothing about the most effective way to kill yourself by slitting your throat.”

He glances at Sherlock, who’s watching him intently. “Possible,” his flatmate says after a bit. “John, next time tell me _everything_. It’s pointless you trying to decide what’s relevant and what isn’t.”  

Abruptly, he spins and starts going through the files.

 

***

Half an hour later, Sherlock has two tattoos and is waiting for evidence of a third. All victims are male, but other than that there’s no connection between them, Lestrade insists.

Both tattoos are just behind the victims’ ears and are about an inch square. But they don’t look like anything recognisable: they’re just black dots and blobs in a seemingly meaningless pattern. However, Sherlock becomes extremely agitated as he uses his pocket magnifier to study one of the tattoos.  

He spins around to face Lestrade. “I need to see this body – the one from this morning. The sooner the better. Can’t allow for any decomposition or damage due to carelessness.”  

“Thought you wanted to find out if there’s a third tattoo,” Lestrade reminds him.

“Unimportant. Of course there is. You can have them email you the evidence when they find it,” Sherlock says. “We need to go to Barts immediately.”

Lestrade sighs again, but agrees. “No nonsense about taxis. You’ll come in my car – if I’m taking responsibility for this, I want you where I can see you.”

In the morgue, the body is slid out for Sherlock to examine – not, this time, by Molly, John’s relieved to see. Wearing gloves, Sherlock carefully brushes aside the victim’s hair from behind his ear and bends to examine the tattoo. Then he takes out his phone and takes a photograph of it. His phone beeps, and he straightens, looking very pleased with himself.

“Right. Scotland Yard,” he announces, then whirls around, striding for the door, his coat swishing behind him.

“But...” Lestrade protests. “You said you wanted to examine the corpse.”

“Done that. Weren’t you looking? John, why must everyone be so slow?”

John shrugs, exchanging mutually sympathetic glances with Lestrade. “Got no idea what he’s up to,” he mouths at the inspector.

“Trouble is, whatever it is, he’ll end up being right. Again,” Lestrade mutters.

 

***

Back at Scotland Yard, Sherlock marches straight back to the interview room and announces that Lestrade will need to see bank records for the victims – and membership records for a club in Soho called Sybarite.

“Okay, but why?” Lestrade asks, breaking off to speak into his phone.

“What you will find is that they were all members of Sybarite. Not just any ordinary member, but some kind of special class of membership, probably getting them access to more... exclusive events or activities.”

“How d’you know that?” John asks.

“The tattoos,” Sherlock says. “Except they’re not tattoos. They’re QR codes.”  

“Q-?”

“QR. Quick Response codes, those little black-dotted squares you see everywhere these days. Scan them with your smartphone and you get taken to the advertiser’s website. Sometimes the code’s even automatically designed to sign you up for mailings from the company.”

John frowns. “Yeah, now that you mention it, that tattoo does look like one of those. Could be.”

“Not _could be_ , _is_ ,” Sherlock points out. “You saw me scan it with my phone.”

Oh. He wasn’t taking a photograph. “It loaded the Sybarite website?” Lestrade asks.

“Not just that. It took me to Jason Morris’s own welcome page.” Morris, right; the victim whose code Sherlock scanned. “Look at this.” Sherlock shows the image on his phone’s screen to Lestrade and John. It proclaims itself to be the platinum members’ portal.

“If all three of these murder victims have that same tattoo, in the same place, then it’s more than a coincidence and somehow the murders are related to Sybarite. If not the club itself, then someone else they met there in the platinum members’ area,” Sherlock declaims.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Lestrade’s typing on his phone. “Thanks, Sherlock. Think the police can take it from here.”

Sherlock nods, typing into his own phone. “I’ve sent you the QR code. Though you’ll need to act quickly – if the club is monitoring visits to its site, particularly any special areas, they’ll already know that someone unauthorised has loaded the page.”

“Already taken care of,” Lestrade says cheerfully, holding up his own phone. “Got a team on the way to the club. It’s not just consulting detectives who can act quickly, Sherlock.”

Sherlock sniffs. “I trust that your people will have the wit not to mess this up, Lestrade, but you know where to find me if you need me.”

Again, he sweeps out of the room before John has a chance to react. He pauses briefly to say goodbye to Lestrade, then hurries after Sherlock. He’d be surprised that Sherlock doesn’t want to stay around to find out why the men were murdered, but he knows Sherlock too well. The interesting bit’s over now; the rest’s just details.

His friend has paused by the open door to a squadroom. John’s just in time to hear him say, “Tattoos, Sally? How very observant of you.”

For once, he almost sounds as if he means it as a compliment.

 

***

“So how did you know it was Sally leaving those messages on your website?”

Sherlock closes his eyes briefly, leaning his head back against the cab seat. “John, it was obvious, if only you’d thought about it. It really took very little to work it out. I already knew it was Donovan before we even got to the internet cafe. That visit just confirmed it.”

He really deserves sainthood, John thinks. All the same, there’s just something fascinating about how Sherlock does it. “Go on, then, tell me. Show me how thick I am.”

Sherlock turns his head and smiles at John. “You’re not thick. Some of the time, you’re actually halfway intelligent.”

“Thanks, I think.” John can’t help but smile back. Sherlock’s grin is just infectious.

“Anyway. Concerned Citizen was clearly someone with inside information on the cases: therefore police. He or she had tried to bring the theory to a senior officer, or more than one, and been shot down. The internet cafe is next to Victoria tube station, which is one stop along the District and Circle Lines from St James’ Park, the nearest station to New Scotland Yard: therefore a police officer based at the Yard. Had to be someone involved with at least one of the cases, but in a subordinate position: therefore Donovan was a likely suspect. Once the cafe manager confirmed that the user was female, that was it.”

Sherlock breaks off and raises an eyebrow at John. “And, of course, as if we needed any more evidence, Lestrade told us himself.”

“He did?”

“You heard him. He said Donovan disagreed with Anderson over the cause of death and was actually happy to have me brought in. I thought she looked even more disapproving than usual when I insisted it was suicide.”

John can’t resist a quick grin. “Even Sherlock Holmes gets it wrong sometimes.”

Sherlock draws his brows together. “I was going by the available evidence. If you and Lestrade fail to provide me with facts I require, then of course my conclusions will occasionally not be as accurate as they could be.”

“So it’s our fault, then?” John asks.

“Well, if you put it like that...” Sherlock drawls, looking pleased with himself again.

“Just as long as I know.” John shakes his head, then grins. He catches Sherlock’s eye. “All the same, _Sally Donovan_ asking you for help! We’re going to see pigs flying next, aren’t we?”   

“Probably. Or Anderson.” And the two of them end up giggling uncontrollably.

 

 **\- end**


End file.
